A Call to Action
Every day we hear of yet another incident demonstrating how pervasive racism is in the United States. Recently I saw a photo of a young Black teen, curled up on the ground, being punched by a police officer compared with a photo of a White man, armed with a rifle, surrounded by many other armed White people, yelling at a silent, still police officer inside the state capitol. I read of the murder of a Black man out for a jog, by a father and son who thought he shouldn’t be there; no charges were filed, although the case is being reviewed in light of a newly publicized video of the shooting.
Most White Americans today will avow that they are not racist; everyone “has a black friend”. Yet study after study demonstrates that racial bias is everywhere, in employment and in schools, on the street and on the screen, in White Supremacists and in progressive hipsters. It’s what makes a police officer beat up a downed Black teenager. It’s what makes a police officer endure an armed White man yelling at him. It’s what makes a father and son suspicious of a Black jogger.
Beyond racial bias is the vast network of long-entrenched systemic racism. The Black community is relentlessly oppressed, repressed, and surpressed by policies, processes, and decisions stretching back through Civil Rights, Armed Segregation (unjustifiably called “Jim Crow” in most literature), Reconstruction, and Slavery. As one small example, more than 150 years ago, White people were given land for almost nothing, hundreds of millions of acres of it, under the 1862 Homestead Act. In 1863 Black people were emancipated, but they were given absolutely no resources and were therefore wholly condemned to sustain their freedom in extreme poverty. That real estate and that poverty have been inherited down more than six generations; median white wealth is ten times higher than median black wealth.
I wasn’t a part of this; my ancestors weren’t either, all peasants who arrived in the USA between 1900 and 1925. Yet every day I benefit from the positive racial bias toward my Whiteness, and every day I benefit from the preferential systemic advantages my immigrant ancestors and I have received over 100+ years. I am not responsible for what was done to Black people in the past. I am responsible for what is being done to Black people now, when I am around to do something about it. Every White person who believes “all men are created equal” needs to accept that responsibility.
Every ethical position in the world demands it: we must do our White People’s Work.
Visit the White People’s Work page for resources and more articles.